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The problem with blood donations is it's very expensive or impossible to test if the blood is clean. Therefore they rely on self reporting by the donors. If bl
by lawn 8y ago
The problem with blood donations is it's very expensive or impossible to test if the blood is clean. Therefore they rely on self reporting by the donors.
If blood instead was paid for people would be incentivized to lie, people desperate for cash wouldn't care about the consequences. For example junkies who might have all sorts of shit in their system.
- Scoundreller 8y agoGetting enough blood through voluntary donations is usually simple. Getting enough plasma or various immunoglobulins can be the difficult part. And sometimes you heavily depend on a few outlier cases, like this guy that’s estimated to have saved 2.4million through his 1000 donations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harrison_(blood_donor) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harrison_(blood_donor)
- maxerickson 8y agoEvery unit of blood is tested before use. Many of the screening questions just reduce waste in the face of plenty of willing donors.
- lawn 8y agoYes but it's not an exhaustive test. There are many illnesses that are very expensive to screen for and some that are basically undetectable.